Mini brittle star?

[shereth]

So, just when I thought that I was through discovering new critters (new tank setup that finished cycling last weekend, on the verge of stocking here shortly) this morning I spotted a couple of little arms poking out from some of the rock. I was immediately able to identify it as a little brittle star.

A little poking around online got me thinking that it was a so-called "mini brittle star" as they seem to be fairly ubiquitous as hitchhikers. Still, the more I read the more confused I became, because different sources say different things about these mini-stars. Primarily, they seemed to indicate that they are smaller than the size of a dime and remain such.

Is this the overall size, or the size of the disk? The little guy I found this morning has a disk that's probably half a centimeter across, but overall (arm length) he's easily over an inch, much bigger than a dime. He's plain white (might have been a very light cream color, hard to say).

I guess I'm just wondering if it is indeed a "mini brittle star" or just an immature "regular" one. Either way, I'm glad to see more biodiversity :)

[redsea reefer]

from your color description, it sounds like a Asterina Star.

[shereth]

No, I have some asterinas and are very different. It's very clearly a brittle star - round, flat central disk with five slender thorny-looking arms. I thought they were little white bristleworms until I realized they were connected.

[Overgreen]

I just found some of these in my tank. I just introduced a brittle star into my tank around a month or month and a half ago. I noticed one walking around on the sand bottom and i've seen a few more now. I think mine had babies i'm guessing.....

[redsea reefer]

I have seen white brittle starts before, it might be that. Harmless either way...

[mesamech]

I've got several in my tank & refugium, 1" to 1.5" seems to be the average size from tip to tip.

[AJSTITAN14]

yes, mini brittle stars.

We have tons. Definitely not asterinas. There are 2 species in ours: striped red and black and then sand colored ones. largest we have seen was a sand colored brittle that was about 3 inches across. We spotted him right at lights on and he soon crawled back into the rocks. Our tank is thriving since the macro was added. Everything is growing like crazy. We saw half a large red and black striped brittle today that was growing two new arms, a sure sign of fission reproduction.

[Devind]

mail me a few of each.... i seriously will pay shipping. I cannot find any near me, and i WILL NOT pay 3-4 bucks apiece for these.